"America Aurea Pars Altera Mundi", Valck, Gerard and Leonard

This ornamental map of the Americas depicts California as an island with a northern coastline indented by two bays on the second Sanson model. California is separated from the mainland by the island-dotted Mare Rubrum. A faint coastline of Terra Esonis stretches northwestward off the map. A large Mer Glaciale appears off Hudson Bay alluding to the possibility of a Northwest Passage. The interior is fully engraved with mountains, forests, place names and Indian tribes. The Great Lakes are formed with an enlarged Lake Michigan (Lac Illinois), and the Mississippi is fairly accurately aligned. The large title cartouche features an Amazon queen in a feather headdress, surrounded by native animals and sugar cane, receiving a kneeling subject who presents her with gold. The cartography of the map is very close to Allard's map of c. 1696 and the cartouche is nearly identical.

References: McLaughlin #176; Tooley (America) p.128, #68, plt. 53; Wagner (NW) #496.

Condition: B+

A sharp impression with contemporary color in the map and later color in the cartouche on a sheet with minor toning. There are two stains northeast of South America, a couple of minor spots in the Pacific, and professionally repaired centerfold separations at top and bottom.